The FBI has raided the apartment of two University of Michigan students to investigate what it has called "potentially fraudulent sales or purchases of virtual currency that people use to advance in the popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft." The story comes from Computer World. The FBI thinks the two students are terrorists who are doing "something" in World of Warcraft to further some sort of terrorist plot. It's hard to say what exactly they suspect from the two within Blizzard's virtual world, but they obviously aren't going on a hunch here.

The two students, a sophomore and a junior, shared a University Towers apartment in Ann Arbor, Michigan were raided by the FBI and had several items confiscated for further investigation including laptops, hard drives, unnamed video game systems, credit cards, a cell phone, undetermined paperwork and other computer equipment.

The unnamed college sophomore told AnnArbor.com, "They [the FBI] thought we were involved in some kind of fraud. I'm pretty sure they have the wrong people, but they took all my stuff."

The student goes on to say that neither of them play world of Warcraft and that the FBI has targeted "the wrong people." Could it be that the FBI raided the wrong apartment?

Investigators don't think so. They say that at least one person at the address they raided was involved in a "scheme to set up fraudulent bank accounts to buy and/or sell 'virtual currency' or 'gold' to be used in the game."

Federal Court records show that the FBI is investigating gold farming and its apparent connection to terrorism. In this case, agents were looking for online transaction records associated with WoW and a number of other web sites such as the Chinese gold-farming website gameusd.com, eBay, PayPal and the United Services Automobile Association.

Comments

"Federal Court records show that the FBI is investigating gold farming and itsapparent connectionto terrorism."

Hey Mr. FBI guys, for those of us who don't see everything in the world as a connection to terrorism, could please explain this "apparent connection?" We don't spend all day reading Tom Clancy books or constructing conspiracy theories where ‘the terrorists win’, so we’re a little confused.

Here’s a thought I just had while typing this:Could what the FBI actions be considered terrorism itself?

They forced themselves into someone’s home and disrupted their lives by taking important things from them (mind you they were students so they probably needed those computers) all under the name of protecting the US against terrorism.

Possible substitutions for “gold farming”:

Federal Court records show that the FBI is investigating breathing and itsapparent connectionto terrorism.

Federal Court records show that the FBI is investigating rabbits and theirapparent connectionto terrorism.

While "buying gold = FUND TERROR" is too far, "buy gold = fund ID theft" is reasonable. After all, there's a reason so many WOW accounts get stolen and stripped. That's how the gold sellers get their inventory -- they deal in stolen goods.

So basicily they are probably currency traders or wholesalers.. but because it was virtual currency rather then the real stuff they were labled terrorists rather then given tax breaks and bailout money?

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm